Transcription
Wes goes on the Logos Bible Study YouTube channel, and they tackle: Does Jude quote Enoch as prophecy? Why does the book of Jude quote Enoch as well as first or second Peter? Why? So, we're going to be diving into this and seeing what Wes Huff has to say. So, let's get into it.
Wes, could you tell us a little bit about First Enoch itself? What do we know about this book? And the the part two to that question, I can repeat this for you if you need, but would would be the question, how did the people in Jude's day view first Enoch?
Yeah. So, what we typically call the book of Enoch is a compilation of a number of writings that most likely existed independently, but eventually got pulled together in one document. So although it's much more ancient, the only existing full copy that we have of first Enoch is in the 15th century in the Ethiopic Bible. So the Ethiopic canon has a a more expanded list of books, and it's written in the the Ethiopic language of Ge'ez. And so that's a book that includes kind of the the full version of what we refer to as first Enoch. Fragments of different sections in Coptic, Greek, Latin, and Aramaic all exist and can be found in say, the Dead Sea Scrolls.
So I was actually last weekend at the Museum of the Bible as part of their opening of an exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and they had a a fragment of Enoch. Actually, it it's a never-before-featured in the public fragment of Enoch, and uh is part of the astronomical Enoch, which is a grouping of these books. So first Enoch, I said, was a compilation document, and there are uh they span a different time period. So the book of the Watchers, which is chapters 1 to 36, dates to about the 3rd century BC, and that's agreed upon to be the oldest section of first Enoch, which is pretty old. That's old, but those are the ones that are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Aramaic and Greek. Um, and then you have the book of Dreams, which is chapters 83 to 90, which is from the 1st century AD. The book of Parables, chapter 37 to 71, which is the 1st century AD, potentially 1st century BC. The astronomical book of Enoch, uh, which I mentioned is, you know, one of those fragments that's featured in the uh at the Museum of the Bible, that comes from the 3rd century BC. And then the Epistle of Enoch, which is chapters 9... Wait, so the book of Enoch, so Logos Bible Study software has the book of Enoch in there. Fascinating. 1 to 108, which is from the 2nd century BC. So, um, there's a a a good deal of literature. Um, it it also contains themes from the time of uh between the Old Testament and New Testament. So it's largely agreed upon that both from the composition of what we can see in the writing and from the content itself, that it it doesn't date earlier than that. It it doesn't date into the time frame of say, the books of the Old Testament. Uh, and there are many ways that we flesh this out. You know, it it uses themes of a solar calendar in opposition to the lunar calendar, which is what happened during the time period of the Hellenistic mathematics, the Greek influence. And um, it also alludes to or paraphrases sections of Daniel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah, and actually talks about Mount Zion, particularly from passages like Deuteronomy 33 and Numbers 24. So, uh, we can pinpoint it in a time frame that is, you know, not, um, Enoch from Genesis, right? The the pre-flood Enoch, but it was a very popular piece of literature, at least the books that make up first Enoch were very popular, um, during, um, you know, this period of antiquity. And so, uh, when Jude references Enoch, it's most likely because his audience would have been aware of it as a a piece of Jewish literature.
And how would they have viewed? So, what you're saying is this is not actually written by Enoch, although it bears his name. Um, how would they have viewed the book at that time? Would they have viewed it as being from Enoch, or did they revere it? Did they see it as scripture? How did how did people of Jude's time understand the book?
Yeah. So that that's an an interesting question which is debated among the scholarship. It's part of, and you sort of pulled up on Logos there when it said the pseudepigraphal Old Testament pseudepigraphal references. That is a category of literature that encompasses the names of individuals, but it's pseudo, right? So think of pseudo, strange in Greek, and graph, writing. So, you know, you have a pseudonym, which is a name that's not yours that you're writing under. Pseudepigraphal writings were actually very popular in the intertestamental period. So if you think of the ending of the Old Testament being Malachi and the beginning of the New Testament being Matthew, in that approximately 400 years, there was a host of pseudepigraphal writings that that used names of biblical characters. So, Apocalypse of Abraham, Apocalypse of Adam, Testament of Adam, we have Second, Third, Fourth Baruch, um, the Apocalypse of Daniel, Psalms of David that are not included in the Psalms. Uh, there's an Apocalypse of Elijah. There's, you know, the names of Ezra and Job and um, Joseph, Manasseh, Moses. All of these, uh, sort of popular characters from the Old Testament have pseudepigraphal writings attached to them. And a lot of them are apocalyptic in nature. So if you think of, um, Revelation, right, the Apocalypse of John, uh, that's what, you know, um, Revelation coming from the the Greek word, um, uh, apocalypsis, right, the apocalypse. This is a category of literature which existed in the Jewish frame of mind. So we have a number of apocalypses, and actually Enoch is part of that, in that it's this culmination of God making all things right in the end. So the Essenes, who were a group of sectarian Jews who had gone off into the desert in an area, um, called Qumran. Uh, they had disassociated from the Jerusalem Jews and had created their own community. They're the ones that are responsible for a good percentage of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Yeah.
They're writing a good many of these documents, and they see themselves as heirs to some degree of the prophetic witness, not necessarily that they believe what they're writing is, uh, prophetic scripture, but that they are heirs of this kind of prophetic movement. And so as part of that, they come up with these apocalypses, which use a lot of imagery. Uh, there's one called, um, the the War Scroll, which talks about, uh, you know, the the armies of light versus the armies of darkness. So there's a lot of this imagery actually that you'd pull from places like...
So do you think it's more of things that they believed in, but not as in history, not as in, oh, this actually happened, but this is metaphorically everything that's happening within our world, Ezekiel and Isaiah, but we see examples of in the book of Revelation and Enoch fits within this category of literature. It's an apocalypse in that it has these kind of apocalyptic themes to them, but it's also commenting on kind of kind of an expanded, um, repertoire of what happens in in Genesis chapter 6 with the flood story. It's talking about what, who were the sons of God that came down and saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and and all this stuff. So, there's a lot going on in Enoch. Um, but so it's part of this body of literature that we refer to as apocalyptic, but it's also that's the genre, but then also part of a subset of writings within the intertestamental period that's referred to as pseudepigraphal. It has that name Enoch attached to it, but it was, uh, neither written during the time of Enoch, or Enoch, uh, being the author.
Yeah. And for those who use Logos, a helpful way, um, to just even get some of this background information, we can run a smart search in Logos. How is Enoch, the pseudo pseudepigraphal work that bears his name, um, as well as the pseudepigraphal work that bears his name, viewed during the time of Jude? And it provides me, it looks through its resources, provides me a summary. Actually, here I have it set.
Dang, this is making me want to get Logos. I'm might have to look up Rouslon's 90-day free trial.
In my books, and I can jump in and read some of my commentaries and resources on this question. So, that's a really helpful resource, uh, that I was playing around with before this conversation. But one of the things that makes, as you mentioned, one of the things that makes this passage into difficult is that the book of Enoch is not actually written by Enoch. Jude refers to Enoch, though. Um, and then he also refers to this as a prophecy. We also know, um, we can just run a search for Enoch in the Bible.
And if we look at the passage in Genesis, it doesn't actually mention him prophesying. There's no indication, arguably at least in the scriptural text, that Enoch was a prophet. Um, obviously, he's kind of this mysterious figure. He just, he's mentioned, and then all of a sudden...
So Enoch's life lasted 365 years. Do you think that's symbolic, too? That he only lived 365 years? And then Enoch walked with God, and he was not there because God took him. What? What?
He walks with God, and then he was no more, um, because God took him. And so I suppose that could invite a lot of speculation. Um, and maybe people want to appeal to Enoch to, um, to sort of, uh, write an authoritative text or a text that would presumably have some authority. But it brings up a lot of questions then of Enoch's use. Does Enoch consider this to be an authentic, um, message from Enoch? Does is this actual prophecy in his view? So maybe Wes, you could walk us through some of those views. How do, um, people understand, uh, maybe the different views on how people understand Jude's use of first Enoch?
Yeah. So because you have this direct, uh, statement of Enoch's prophecy, it does make it a little bit complicated. So the mainstream position is that Enoch is, or rather that Jude is citing a passage from first Enoch. Does it give you the citation there? If you click on the passage, um, in the ESV, it does not provide it. It just provides parallel Old Testament passages. There are, I think, in the NE, though, the second edition, um, it includes, I think it's, I think it's 1:9, might be, um, it's nine. So the the ancient literature, uh, section in Logos does bring up 1:9 specifically. Yes.
We'll be right back to the interview, but first, a quick word about the tool that makes this show possible. Logos, the premier app for Bible study and sermon preparation. Logos combines a rich theological library with powerful tools to help you study scripture faster and deeper.
Recitation, and is Jude, uh, referencing it? There are some complications with the fact that, so that is largely the mainstream perspective in academia, is that this is a quotation. Now, remember that Jude is writing in Greek, and that this particular section of Enoch in Enoch 1 is Aramaic. And so there's a little bit of kind of interplay. Jude would have to either be working with a Greek translation of this section of Aramaic Enoch, which does not exist anymore, or he himself is like translating it for his audience. Um, the agreement, however, between the passage, even with all the possible ways that we could translate the Aramaic passage, um, still only comes up with. And, uh, there was a really interesting paper that was done by Peter Gentry and Andrew Fountain on Jude's use of Enochian traditions. And, um, in that, Gentry actually argues that this is not a quotation. And one of the ways that he argues that is that he argues specifically for the fact that the the correlation between the two passages is only about 72% similar. And so that's high, but it it's it's not exact. Huh. But you could probably say that about other verses too in the Old Testament and then the New Testament that they're quoting it. But again, if they don't have the Greek, if they don't have a Greek version, he would have to translate, which would make it more difficult for it to be like 100% word for word. And so there's some question as to whether this is, uh, maybe even an literature that is is either in oral tradition or is, uh, it's kind of the the goes behind either what we have within the Dead Sea Scroll particular sections or the later Ethiopic section that we find much, much later. Um, but the mainstream position is that it is a quotation. It's it's like I said before, potentially the only unambiguous quotation within Jude, but there is a a minority perspective within scholarship that this isn't a quotation. And, um, I think actually both positions have pretty good, um, evidence behind them.
Wait, so how could they both have pretty good evidence? If one has good evidence that it is a quotation and one that doesn't?
Seems both internally and externally. The apostolic references to these extra-biblical traditions, um, are, um, scant. And there is some question about Enoch, um, within the, uh, the the early church fathers. Tertullian, in the second century, actually goes on record advocating for it, not as scripture, but as a useful book to read and potentially, um, arguing that it could have been preserved on the ark and that it was Enoch who wrote it.
Wow.
But when he comes up with his canon list, he he leaves it out. Um, so he clearly does not think it's scripture. And actually, of the 20 early Christian canon lists between the second and the fifth centuries, none of them contain Enoch within the contents. And Josephus, the late 1st, early 2nd century, uh, Romano-Jewish writer, specifically says that there is nothing that predates, uh, the the Torah. So you can't, if it's if it's not written by Moses as kind of the earliest portion of the canon, it's not scripture. And so by Josephus's standards, which would have been say, the mainstream Pharisaical standards, Enoch is is not, um,
Unless it was written after, but it would have never been written by Enoch then.
eligible for canon. Uh, so there's a a number of issues here. Uh, but the the consensus is that, you know, the the Jewish perspective was almost was unanimously that it was not scripture. Um, and then the early Christians, although they're interested in it, when they eventually do have their broader, uh, canonical conversations, what is and isn't scripture, uh, Enoch is referenced sometimes, but almost always as this is profitable for reading and for edification, but not to be understood as inspired scripture.
Okay.
Which is fascinating. And that's probably really similar to the view that I have. Is it very interesting to see? Profitable to read. It's not inspired word of God. We shouldn't take it to heart like they say, thus sayeth the Lord. But it's interesting. Let's let's double-click on that. The in terms of how the early church thought about the canonicity of, or the lack of canonicity of, first Enoch. Um, how exact does does the fact that Jude arguably, I know you said that there are some, there are some who believe that this is maybe, um, either Jude quoting or referencing, alluding, whatever that is, because there's some differences between, as you mentioned, there's some differences between what Jude actually, what we have Jude saying and what we have at least, um, in terms of our available manuscripts of first Enoch, there's some differences there. But the fact that, however we phrase it, that Jude is using arguably first Enoch. Um, how does does that play into the early church's consideration of the canonicity of first Enoch? Were there some who who saw it as canon because Jude referenced it? And then the other side of the question is, if people saw first Enoch as not canonical, did it bring into question whether Jude was canonical for some?
Yeah. So Jude was in kind of a a group of literature in the early canon questions, uh, as to whether it should be considered authentic scripture. So very early on, in and around the, uh, the 2nd century, we have, uh, 22 of the 27 books basically established as unanimous consensus. There are some questions about some other books. Um, 1, 2, and 3 John, uh, 1 and 2 Peter, James, Jude, and Revelation. Revelation actually had very early reception, and then as time went on, it gets questioned later. But those are books that are kind of brought into kind of the speculation of what's going on. And a lot of that had to do with a related issue to what we were talking about with pseudepigraphal writings, in that you had apocryphal literature. So apocrypha, meaning anything that's kind of outside of the canon, right? You have the the canonical lists, canon just being, um, a word that means rule or standard. And then apocryphos can mean secret. It can mean strange. Um, but it kind of becomes this catch-all term for things that just aren't in scripture. So not all of it is heretical, right? We don't necessarily need to think of, uh, apocryphal literature as, um, heretical or wrong, but it's just not inspired scripture, right? So, uh, and as part of that, you had books with names associated with Peter and John floating around. So, you had a lot of that. And so the early church, when they're having these conversations about what is and isn't scripture, part of that is getting the chain of custody of books that have very common name association, um, or name association that is popular, but maybe has less of a chain of custody going back to the apostolic tradition outright. Uh, and so John and Peter fall into that category because there are a lot of writings. There's an Apocalypse of Peter, there is for second and, uh, first, second Peter, but then there's also a Gospel of Peter and there's an Acts of Peter. And so the early church, I think, is appropriately trying to do their homework and say, okay, let's get this right. Let's make sure that we can trace this back to either someone who knew Jesus or someone who knew someone who knew Jesus. And so as part of that, Jude gets, uh, introduced into that because there's an early tradition of Jude being one of the half-brothers of Jesus. But they want to make sure that that's that they're actually able to verify that within the earliest Jesus community. Now,
I don't think that, as far as I'm aware, any of that conversation had to do with the Enochian reference. Uh, I think partly because at this point, it was largely agreed upon that Enoch was not scripture. But on top of that, uh, mere reference doesn't equate scriptural status. And, uh, if it did, we would have to include a number of pagan philosophical writings that Paul references, right? And so I think what, what's more likely going on there, and I think this was understood within the ancient frame of mind of those that were reading it, is that the New Testament authors occasionally reference writings that are very well known within their day to make a particular point. So Paul does this, right, when he references, um, a number of pagan philosophers.
Do you have those pulled up there?
Yep. Yep.
Okay. So I ran a smart search for places where scripture quotes, this is giving us a little bit broader than quotes, but uses extra-biblical writing. So, um, in Paul's speech in Acts 17...
Dang, that's...
But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil was disputed, Jude really wrote a lot of crazy stuff about the body of Moses and did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke." Wait, so where is that found? And what writing?
15, uh, Titus 1, Jude shows up as well. Um, and even beyond quoting, like Jude 9 references a sort of tradition it seems with the angel, the archangel Michael.
Yeah. So that's that's an interesting one too, cuz Jude, that reference is not a quotation, but it is what appears to be kind of a paraphrase or a commentary on a document called the Assumption of Moses. Um, so actually this plays into the conversation, uh, as to why Jude may be doing this. And
Guys, not going to lie, this is making me want to use Logos Bible software. Shout out. This is why they make these videos, right?
Part of it could be that Jude is using these types of traditions, whether it's the, um, Assumption of Moses or the Jewish Enochian traditions, to counter an assertion that evil in the world is due to angelic impurity. So this is a discussion that's going on in their day, and we already have, you know, Paul warning against endless genealogies, right? And and that is exactly what you have in in the Enochian literature there. There's a lot of endless genealogies. Um, and so, uh, there is an argument, and this is actually what Peter Gentry makes, which I think is relatively compelling, that part of the reference of using Enoch within Jude is actually a counterargument to point out that, um, sin is not due to angelic impurity. Rather, evil is due to human rebellion against God,
Which is taught specifically in Genesis 3. Right? So, if,
if the the narrative Enoch is correct, then sin is actually an issue that is outside of, um, human accountability because it was brought into by the angels' rebellion. And this statement can be true whether one argues that the, you know, the Enochian section, the book of the Watchers, is or isn't, uh, part of sort of this theological evil origin, or whether, uh, one argues that this Enochian literature contains various, um, perspectives for evil's origin. But either way, Jude is using a tradition to counter what appears to be a perspective that was already in the Jewish tradition in the second.
You think it was to counter? I don't know. Now I'm remembering who Peter Gentry is. Gentry, I think he's part of the Southern Baptist Convention or whatnot. Um, I believe I watched some of his videos. But I don't think it excuses people's sin. I think it kind of somehow explains the rebellion of the fallen angels, because obviously Satan has rebelled. There's rebellious angels. There's rebellious spiritual beings, obvious like that's a separate thing. Has nothing to do with humans. But fascinating stuff. Um, anyway, thank you so much for watching. Love and appreciate you all. I hope you have an amazing day and, uh, keep on trusting in Jesus. Have an amazing day and God bless.